“I’ve been practicing,” I admit.
“Practicingwhat?” he asks, as if the answer will reveal some big secret.
I shrug. “Just…I don’t know…practicing. Sometimes I want a bit of peace,” I say. “So I’ve been trying to focus my mind and quiet it. It must be working,” I conclude.
Viz doesn’t say anything for a moment, clearly wondering whether to believe me.
“Come on then, your turn,” I say, hoping to wipe the suspicion off his face. The last thing I need is the demons realizing I’m still hoping to escape just when I’ve worked out how to temporarily block Syrus.
“They were talking about the necessary precautions to ensure your body isn’t destroyed by the possession,” he says matter-of-factly as he goes to pick up his quill again.
I gape. “I didn’t think wecouldprotect ourselves from that.”
“Oh, there’s a way,” Viz says, not meeting my eye. “It’s just most humans don’t know about it.”
“And? What is it?”
“Ephilium blood. It counteracts the demonic energy so the host isn’t harmed.”
“But Syrus said he’s been taking the?—”
“You’vebeen taking it,” Viz interrupts. “In your juice at breakfast every morning.”
My hand goes to my throat as I remember that first meal when Viz smelled my drink, then the strange little exchange between Syrus and him when they asked me if I was feeling the effects of the possession. They were checking to see that the blood was working.
Maybe I should be horrified by the idea that I’ve been unwittingly consuming winger blood this whole time, but the flood of relief hits me too hard.
I’m not dying. I’m fine. I mean, aside from the fact that I can suddenly understand Cyrax and am having disturbingly inappropriate thoughts about the demon possessing me. But at least there’s no ticking clock counting down to my inevitable destruction like I thought.
Which means Syrus has been looking out for me. I can’t deny this changes the angle from which I’ve been looking at my stay in Infernum. This whole time I thought I was tied to someone who didn’t care that he was killing me, and now I learn it’s quite the opposite—he’s been making sure that being bound to him isn’t causing me harm.
But he let you believe it was.
The thought pops into my head, sharp and angry. It snaps me out of my earlier relief, bringing me to my senses. So he’s not actively killing me—that’s great. But he was still fine with tricking me into thinking I could beslowly dying, just because it made me more motivated. And he’s been deliberately hiding the truth from me in a glass of juice at breakfast every morning.
Suddenly, a lot of other stuff makes sense. Like his willingness to postpone our return to Strata to train me instead. He knew we had time, and sure, that’s less callous than what I thought was the case—that Ididn’thave time, and he didn’t care—but it’s a close fucking second on the bastard scale.
“Areyouall right?” Viz asks now, concerned. “You look like you’re going to chew your lip off.”
I release my abused lip from between my teeth. “I’m fine,” I say. “More than fine. Because it turns out I’m not being rotted from the inside out every time that asshole crawls into my head.”
Viz offers me a weak smile. “Silver linings, eh?” Then something sparks in his eyes, and his brow furrows. “Wait a minute, how did you know what the lords were talking about anyway? It was all in Cyr?—”
“Bye, Viz,” I say, deciding I’m not sticking around to answer more questions. I’m certainly not waiting for Syrus to come back and berate me about eavesdropping. Not when I have just as much to be angry with him about.
That anger stays with me as I hide out in my room, practicing my mental boundaries. If I can keep playing dumb about it until we go back to Strata, there’s a chance I can keep Syrus out of my head long enough to do something about the bond. But this evening, I’m distracted by everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours.
I don’t understand what game the Lord of Malice is playing these days. Why tell me about his past but not about the ephilium blood? Why show me the garden and say nothing about the fact I managed to shove him out of my head a few hours earlier?
Sometimes it feels obvious I’m nothing but a puppet to him, a tool to be used to save his domain. Then others, I’m not so sure.
When night starts to fall, I go to sleep early. Syrus hasn’t yet tracked me down to punish me for interrupting the meeting, and if I’m asleep, I can at least put that delightful prospect off until tomorrow.
Except I don’t quite make the decision in time, because just as I’m getting up to change into my nightgown, I feel him. The caress of his presence drifts across my skin as he enters my mind. Goosebumps break out across my body, and I shiver.
I hate it, how much my bodydoesn’thate it. The way it responds to this messed-up, unnatural connection between us not like it’s being invaded, but like a part of me is actually inviting him in. Eager.Wanting.
Whether intentionally or not, he always uses it to catch me off guard and unbalance me, and I wish I could turn the tables.
